Page 24 of Hot Nights in Morocco
He lifts his head with a scowl. Our eyes lock together for a second longer than is comfortable.
“Okay, fine,” I say, blinking first. “That it’s a loaded, pretentious affair held every year in one of the most exclusive hotels in Beverly Hills.”
“Are you paraphrasing again?”
“Perhaps.” I grin. “Am I wrong?”
To my surprise, he gives a bark of laughter.
I’m mesmerized.
That mouth…
“How many of these events do you attend?” I ask, drinking in his profile. It’s so like Max’s, yet stronger somehow. Leaner and more rapacious. The sheer force of his masculinity is dominating the car again, and cedarwood and citrus are all I can smell.
“More than I’d like.” He slides his phone into his inside jacket pocket and starts adjusting his silver cufflinks.
“Then why are you going tonig…?” I trail off as he turns to glare at me.
“Are you trying to stand me up again?”
Who’s he kidding? He’s never been stood up in his life.
“That’s not what I meant. You look like you’re on the way to a funeral. I never knew my company could be so…affecting.”
His jaw tenses and he glances out of the window. “I prefer to keep a low profile. I have a tendency to lose my shit whenever paparazzi lenses start flashing at me.”
“Shades of a goldfish bowl?” I mock. “If you don’t like the limelight, I guess you shouldn’t be so good at your job. Why are you a producer instead of an actor, anyway?”
Jake frowns. “Why the hell would I be an actor?”
“Well, because you’re so good-loo—” I stop myself just in time, but Jake’s already caught the gist.
There’s a glimmer in his dark eyes and his smugness is palpable. “You think I’m good-looking, Books?” he enquires slyly, relishing my discomfort, confusing me all over again with his mixed signals. He’s the one who is always warning me not to go there. Not that I would, if I had a single thread of sanity left.
Thankfully the doorman rescues me, and I exit the car in a rush, spilling out onto an acre of red carpet and diamonds. Many of L.A.’s most desirable residents are in attendance tonight, and they’re all clamoring to speak to Jake as soon as we step inside the venue.
“Jake, baby, howareyou?” croons a tall, predatory blonde, whose gaze shifts to me momentarily.
“Julia, good to see you,” he says, kissing her proffered cheek. “This is Charlie, Max’s assistant. She’s helping me out while my own is indisposed.”
His lies are almost as smooth as he is.
“What fun,” says the blonde with a titter. “A staff outing for you, honey? Jake, youmustmeet my therapist,” she adds, turning her back on me now that I’m of no further interest. “She’s such a fan of your movies.”
Rolling my eyes, I turn to leave but there’s a wall of gorgeous women blocking my exit—a dozen perfect, heart-shaped faces with supermodel figures to match.
Elbowing a path through all the D&G and Balmain, I grab two champagne flutes from a passing server and go in search of my mother and stepfather. I soon locate them holding noisy court over a couple of new money contemporaries. As usual, my mother doesn’t look a day over thirty. Nervy and slim to the point of painful, her figure suits her tight cerise cocktail dress to perfection, and she attracts plenty of admiring glances from all the octogenarian billionaires milling about.
She and David are deep in conversation with a Texas oil type and his Stepford wife. I don’t like the look of either of them, so I down my drinks and grab another. Only then do I make my way over.
“Darling, you came!” she cries, throwing her arms around my neck—carefully though, so as not to smudge her immaculate body contour makeup, the dutiful mother as always. In public, anyway. “I knew you’d choose the Chanel, and you look so stunning in it. Doesn’t she look gorgeous, David?”
My stepfather grunts in agreement and obediently kisses my cheek. “Beautiful as always, Charlie,” he says with a smile.
“Ta very much.”
I don’t mind David. He looks as bland as his personality, but he’s harmless enough. He’s always been very kind to me, and has shown a painstaking level of patience after everything that happened with my father. He was there in the immediate aftermath, and it wasn’t pretty. He also loves my mother to distraction, and keeps her in the filthy rich manner to which she’s worked so hard to become accustomed.
